Day 125 Returning home

At the airport flying to Tasmania and a huge storm passed through - it was pouring and reflected how I was feeling as we had received news on Sunday that my Dad had passed away.

Shellshocked, heartbroken....

I will return to my blog in a few months.

Day 122 Demolished Birthday lunch

at the Mezze Lebanese Grill in East Brunswick. My nephew is visiting with us and it his birthday today and it was my son's last Monday so we celebrated today with lebanese. Yum.

Day 119 I know, I know another moon shot but could not resist

and these just do not do it justice but hope you enjoy anyway.....

If you looked up in the sky tonight you would have enjoyed the same view.

Day 118 New auditorium officially opened

Last night we went to the official opening of the auditorium at our son's school. I did not manage to get any photos so today when I dropped the boys at school took a couple of pics. Some of the landscaping is till being worked on but otherwise everything is finished. It is great and will be a well used!

Day 117 New study bench

One side now almost finished tidy and set up. It is great to have a large area to work on. We will probably change the printer to wireless and put it on the other side which will give us even more room. We just need to hide all our cables and power boards and maybe a shelf and it will be all done! Then to tidy up the other side and re-organise the drawers etc.

Day 116 One sad and lonely desk ....

relegated to the veranda as nowhere else to put it

and one big mess to clean out and tidy up....

Day 115 Do you remember. . .

Chocolate ripple cake?? Last term at school I made one of these for Luis to take to school and I had not made one probably since I was his age living at home. Anyway he loved it thought it was great so we made one today for his birthday celebration tomorrow.

still undecorated - I will buy some chocolate and strawberries tomorrow to finish it off.

Day 114 Books glorious books

Love them....

Day 113 Old basket

This old basket belonged to my mum. I remember she use to keep all her sewing patterns in it. I now have it just because I like it and it reminds me of her!

Day 112 Still scribbling

no matter how old they are (almost 15 in this case!) they cannot resist scribbling on their arms, legs etc

Day 111 The things you find...

While perusing my pantry yesterday looking for a shot I found this lovely chicken (for those of you that could not tell what it was!) on the very top shelf! It was made by my Auntie who is in her 80's one Easter for the boys. I think from memory there were some little easter eggs on the platform. I did not have the heart to get rid of her! (the chicken not the auntie)

Day 110 What's in your pantry?

Just one small corner of my large pantry...

(large walkin pantry that just attracts more stuff than I need and is always messy!)

Day 109 A day ends

Goodbye sun....

Hello moon....

Day 108 Turning Japanese

My younger son loves sushi (hand rolls & the real thing) but we had never taken them to a Japanese restaurant before so tonight we went out and had a great time experiencing Japanese food beyond the hand roll from the takeaway sushi bars.

Day 107 SLAV Library display workshop

I spent today at Carlton at a SLAV Library display workshop which was fun. This is one of the displays they had put together to tie in with this years CBC Book Week theme "Book Safari".

Day 106 On the way to a new study

We are putting in bench desks to our study and we bought two sets of drawers and painted them and put new knobs on along with two CPU stands from Ikea. These will sit under the bench tops. So almost there. We will cut the bench tops on the weekend and hoping to get it all finished soon. Can't wait it will be great to have a large workspace.

Day 105 Winter moss

The garden in front of our house faces south and every winter we get a lovely covering of moss which I love. This is just a snapshot of one small section.

Day 104 Albino possum lives in our garden

For some time now when my husband comes home at night from work he has told us that he sees an albino possum. We are never sure about believing him but after quite a few sightings I thought there must be. Tonight when he came home he told us the possum was back and was sitting at the base of the tree so we all went outside to see if we could see him. He had gone back up into the tree and I was able to get a few photos. I believe they are quite rare and I am not sure if these are the same but there are some possums who are referred to as golden possums. I think he may feel safe in our yard and that is why he has stuck around for so long. Anyway he/she really is quite wonderful don't you think!

Day 103 Back to school we go...

Don't they look full of enthusiasm.... returning to school after the holidays - how well I remember that feeling!

Day 102 Looking through bare winter branches....

to a glorious blue winter sky.....

Day 101 Spent the day in Footscray

buying a rice cooker... no not really. We had to go over to Footscary to attend to another matter and we desperately needed a new rice cooker. We use ours alot and wanted a good one that would last. I had read about the Tiger rice cookers (Japanese) and rang around to some stores in Footscray knowing we would be there. When we went in to take a look at the Tiger but walked out with this one by Toshiba. Highly recommended by the lady and the quality was obviously much better. So it was a good day....

Day 100 Daffodils...

Little nodding beauties looking for some winter sun.... I always love seeing bulbs starting to flower and especially those belonging to the daffodil family. Where I grew up on our farm in Tasmania we had fields of them under the orchard and seeing them always stirs strong memories.....

Day 99 Ikea meatballs

The story behind this picture...

At work one of our almost daily discussions is "what are you cooking for dinner tonight?" I very rarely cook anything ready made except the occasional curry paste, I pretty much like to cook everything from scratch as does my work colleague who I have this discussion with. So one day a few months ago I asked the question and the reply was something along the line of .. "well you are going to laugh at this but we are having Ikea meatballs" .. and yes we then both had a good laugh as it seemed rather weird to hear her say this. But she went on to explain she buys the frozen meatballs and the packet gravy from Ikea (because they are delicious) and they are like her cheats dinner. So I of course knowing her as I do I thought they must be OK so next time I went to Ikea I bought the gravy only (still had to make my own meatballs just could not bring myself to buy the frozen ones) and made them and we all loved them. Then after I ran out of packets of gravy I thought Ikea is not around the corner for me I think I will just make the gravy myself. So after I "googled" Ikea meatball gravy I found a recipe. I made them we loved it and all decided it was so much nicer than the packet gravy. It was delicious and everyone loves them. That's a pic of them above.

So that's great - only thing is - I now do not have a quick and easy cheats dinner that I could use when I did not feel like making everything from scratch ... oh well these are too good for me to do otherwise....

Day 98 Monkeying around...

The end of the school holidays and so today was my first day back at work (school library).

The boys have been running a program to collect old mobile phones due to the environmental damage done by mining coltan (a component of the phones) to the habitat of the gorillas. It is being run by the Melbourne Zoo and you can read about it here.

We have posters and a toy gorilla to bring attention to the collection box in the library. Today at recess I had a surprise when one (or more) of the boys sat him in the chair to catch up on some reading....

The orangatan hanging from our airconditioning ducts is just another prop which the boys have really loved hanging from there....

Day 97 Making an entrance...

Day 96 Simple gate made beautiful

This very simple gate is framed beautifully with the stone pillars and dry wall...

Day 95 Stone Wall at entrance to "Sonning"

Day 94 Beautiful stone walls

Day 93 Been awhile ...

I have been busy and admittly finding it difficult to get my photos on my blog. I have managed to take a photo most days but feeling like that are not always that interesting and so dragging my feet to get them posted.... so here goes.

The area that we live is near the Edna Walling estate (Landscape artist from the 50's and 60's) and one of her signature features was stone walls in particular dry stone walls and there are quite a few homes in this area that have chosen to use them in their own gardens. So I thought I would show you some each day for the next few days at least. This one is highlighted with a beautiful iron pedestrian gate.

Day 92 More finds... Stereoscopic views

I found these today. They are stereoscopic views and the above picture shows:

• Coronation of King Edward VII in London
• The Great Wall of China
• Duke of York celebrations Melbourne : Chinese procession and the Queen's Arch

I think they belonged to my grandparents or possibly my great grandparents. We just have the cards not the viewer. But they are very interesting and the rest of the cards (there are lots) show scenes from Hobart, Sydney, India, China and London.

"A stereograph is a twin photograph that has been taken by a special two-lens camera. Each lens is spaced the same distance apart as our eyes. The two images are then mounted side-by-side on a cardboard mount and can placed in a viewer or 'stereoscope'. The resultant 3-D image is incredibly realistic. Viewing stereoscopic images was an important form of family entertainment 100 – 150 years ago." http://www.abc.net.au/tv/collectors/segments/s2558360.htm

Day 91 Sounds of popcorn popping....

I think this guy is a yellow tailed black cockatoo. Not a great pic. They visit us alot in quite large flocks as we have alot of pine trees near our house and they love the pine cones. They break them open to get to the seed and when they do it is very loud and sounds just like popcorn popping. I had never heard it before moving here and the first time we heard it we could not work out what it was. Now I know and it always alerts us that there is a flock nearby. This morning there were just 3 of them (and they still made lots of noise) and they were not easy to photograph as in amongst the folliage of the trees. But managed to get this one pic. Not clear but will try again next time as they are beautiful birds.

Day 90 Could not pass up a bargain today...

I went across to Knox shopping centre today to pick something up for my son. Planned on going in getting out - not my favorite place to be! I happened to walk through Myer who were having an extra 25% off there marked down prices. So decided to take a look and I grabbed some business shirts for my husband and some T-shirts for my son. I bought them feeling pretty happy then continued on my way.

On returning I walked back through Myer to get to the car and noticed a sign saying 50% off today only at the entrance (I thought it was just business shirts) . So I went to the counter in the men's department to question my previous purchase and to get my further discount. The lovely sales lady then proceeded to tell me it was 50% off all marked down clothing. So of course I had to do some more shopping. All up bought some great business & casual shirts and jeans & t-shirts. So 3 hours after arriving I left to go home and worked out I saved around $350 all up so pretty happy as I am not one to shop very often. .

Day 89 Anyone for a cup of tea?

That's with a moustache ......

or without...

These are a couple of tea cup sets that my auntie gave to me quite a few years ago. I packed them up when we moved the last time and they have not seen the light of day since. When clearing up I decided to go through the boxes and found quite a few lovely old tea cup sets but these two I thought were especially lovely.

The top pic is of a special tea cup for those of us with big moustaches and is probably Victorian. The second pic is of a little tea cup set Royal Doulton from around 1920.

Day 88 On the way to Geelong

Family visit today. Travelled to Geelong to see my husband's parents. Cold, overcast day but took some snaps from the car on the way down.

Day 87 Finds from my childhood

Now for some more finds - these are books from my childhood - again these books were awards at Sunday School. I was only saying a few weeks ago at work how I never had alot of books when I was growing up except for those that I received through Sunday School and that in spite of that I still ended up an avid reader.

Day 87 More finds

These are some more finds that I came across. These are also childrens books but not reproduction. The animal books belonged to my grandfather when he was a small child, awarded to him at The Nook Sunday School, one in 1903 and the other in 1901. (The Nook is a small town in North West Tasmania). The Kate Greenaway book does not have an inscription so I am not sure who it belonged to but I think my mum told me it was my grandmothers. They are not in very good condition but I love them and cherish them so these are definite Finds...

(sorry the photos ended up cut off when I used the Flickr mosaic tool could have redone it but...if you click on the photo you will get an enlarged version and will show more detail)

Day 86 Finds...

While sorting out my spare room I came across a collection of childrens books that I bought when I started my first job many years ago. I worked in a newsagency & at the time there were not really any book shops in our town so the newsagency being quite large carried a large range of books - fiction, non fiction and childrens. I remember how when these books arrived I would save up for them. (tells you something about my measly wage doesn't it?)

The photos are of just two of the books I have. They are reproduction books of antique flap and pop up books. They are definite Finds and are treasures that I will hold onto.